BETWEEN THE TESTAMENTS

The story of the Revolution and the occupation (ca. 167 BC)

Found in: 1 & 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch and Daniel

A momentary Jewish peace ended when Alexander the Great and the Greeks conquered the Persians and the Jews. The Greeks conquered the Jews more culturally than in the military sense. Hellenist influence brought advances in philosophy but also detracted the Jews from the worship of Yahweh, this time with the worship of Greek gods.

One day a zealous Jew named Mattathias killed another Jew for offering sacrifices to Zeus in the temple. When the Greek king sent an envoy to investigate, Mattathias killed him too, and the Maccabean revolt began. The Maccabees (sons of Mattathias) beat the Greeks in spite of being outnumbered, and they rededicated the temple to God.

The Jewish nation would grow into the Hasmonean Dynasty, almost as large as the Davidic Kingdom of old. But because there were no prophets at this time, the Jews became more a political state than the  religious people they were. A concern for this gave rise to three factions: (1) the Essenes, an austere religious community isolated from society to prepare for a Messiah; (2) the Pharisees and their scribes, who felt that they were the rightful interpreters of scripture in the absence of the prophets; and (3) the Sadducees, the priests who considered themselves, not the Pharisees, as the rightful interpreters of Scripture. 

The Pharisees combined Plato’s concept of a separate body and soul and Ezekiel’s prophesies in their teaching of the resurrection of the dead, answering the problem of evil in this life by pointing to divine justice in the next. The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection as they focused only on the Torah, the first five books of Moses. In new Hebrew and Greek writings, the righteous were said to ultimately rest in the hand of God and the wicked suffer in Sheol (previously just a shadowy underworld, now also understood as a place of torment).

Then came the mightiest empire of them all, the Romans, sweeping away what was left of the Hasmoneans. Judea (now Palestine) was occupied by puppet Jewish kings appointed by the Caesars. Herod the Great was one such king, bent on killing any alleged Messiah during his reign. After his death, Palestine was ruled by Roman procurators, and a nationalistic group of Jews, the Zealots, grew from what was left of the Maccabees, often resorting to terrorist tactics against the Romans.

Between the Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Zealots, all under the yoke of the Roman Empire, the “fullness of time” had been reached. The stage was set.


Notes:

The menorah of Hannukah comes from the time of the Maccabees. When repurifying the temple, a single day's  worth of oil once burned for 8 days.

Written around this time, the book of the prophet Daniel uses the same apocalyptic style of writing used by Ezekiel, which uses visions and past people and events to prophesy eschatological (end time) events. Daniel tells the story of him and his friends willing to die rather than worship false idols in the time of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel is thrown into a lions' den, but God keeps the lions' mouths shut.

Daniel then prophesies of a deliverer, a Messiah, a “Son of Man” who will appear amongst the clouds at God’s right hand. It was this title “Son of  Man” that Jesus used for himself. 

The Essenes took great care in copying the Scriptures into scrolls, many of which were found in the 1950s in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Review questions:

What Jewish factions arose from the need for spirituality during the more political Hasmonean Dynasty?

Name two developments in Jewish beliefs influenced by the Greeks.

What characterizes apocalyptic writing?

Daniel in the lion’s den
defending me just like his friends,
Refusing idols, singing in the flames.
Nebuchadnezzar couldn’t understand
the zeal with which these young boys sang.
With joyful noise these boys declared my name. 
The boys declared my name!

Courageous family of Maccabees
Picking up a little Greek philosophy,
and a Jewish Hasmonean Dynasty.

But in the days without a prophecy,
political machinery was all that’s left,
and they just couldn’t see me, yeah.

And in the days without a prophecy,
Between the testaments a history
of Zealots and centurions in a rage.
The procurators and caesars’ rings
put false messiahs under puppet kings.
The Roman occupation set the stage.

Philosophy said we had a soul.
The underworld burned into Sheol
for those who don’t make it 
to the Bosom of Abraham.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees
argued over Moses and eternity.
The Essenes washed 
but they just couldn’t see me, yeah.

And in the days without a prophecy,
Between the testaments a history
of Zealots and centurions in a rage.
The procurators and caesars’ rings
Put false messiahs under puppet kings.
The Roman occupation set the stage.

Now in the days without a prophecy,
Between the testaments a history
of Zealots and centurions in a rage!
The procurators and caesars’ rings
put false messiahs under puppet kings.
The Roman occupation set the stage.
The Roman occupation set the stage.
The Roman occupation set the stage.